A Comedy of Heirs

by Rett MacPherson

  I went upstairs to my office and sat down at my desk. I pulled out the big piece of material that I had traced the pattern on for the Indian Hatchet quilt design. Then I reached into my top desk drawer and found the note that came with the original newspaper articles. I scanned each relative’s signature on the material and compared it to the writing on the note. The thought had occurred to me that somebody not related to me could have sent this note with the articles. I preferred not to believe that, though, and went on.

  I traced my finger over Uncle Jed’s signature and remembered asking him to sign it. He and Uncle Isaac had been having what appeared to be a not so happy conversation. Now I wondered what that could have been about. I just couldn’t believe that the wonderful old coot that was my Uncle Jedidiah Keith was dead. Not possible.

  About halfway through the signatures, I stopped. The w in the letter had a distinct little loop on it. The same little loop that was in the w for Dwight. The slant was the same. And the th was connected so that the t was crossed with the beginning loop of the h. It was my father. The handwriting matched my father’s. Dwight Robert Keith.

  Okay, not only did he lie to me about how Nate Keith had died, knowingly, but also sat at my kitchen table and pretended to have never seen those newspaper articles before in his life! And all along, he was the one that sent them to me. I just wanted to scream. I wanted to scream and pull his hair out of his head.

  How dare he? How could he? Why would he? Why would he and then pretend it wasn’t him?

  He wanted me to know about it and, obviously, do something about it. He just didn’t want me to know that he put enough faith in me to actually do it. God, he was infuriating.

  I rubbed my eyes and let out a huge sigh. I would deal with him later. Then I took the stuff that I had received from Robin earlier and began to read those articles.

  The first article reported the drowning of a Pine Branch boy, William Ferguson, out in Pine Branch creek. Half a mile up the creek just south of where the creek came out of the river, there was a strong undertow and crossing of currents. So actually they were swimming in the river just before it became a creek, I realized.

  I stopped a moment and thought about this. I remember being warned about that spot in the river when I was a little girl and went down to my grandparents’ house to visit in the summer. I remember specifically my grandfather telling me that when he was a young boy he could remember the time that somebody lost some cargo in the river and it would disappear under the surface and reappear a few minutes later, only to be sucked back down. “Never, ever go there,” he’d warned me.

  The article went on to say that the boys were daring each other to swim across the area, knowing that the undertow was there. Nathaniel Keith and William Ferguson were “always real competitive,” neighbors reported. Bradley Ferguson reported that Nate Keith kept calling his brother a girl and so William swam across that area of the river three extra times, I suppose to prove he wasn’t a girl. On the last time, he became too tired and hesitated just long enough for the undertow to grab him. William Ferguson surfaced five minutes later, a very dead boy. The year was 1884.

  I was depressed. It seemed that everything Nate Keith touched, he ruined. Frankly, I was tired of thinking about Nate Keith. If I woke up tomorrow and had no idea who he was, I would be happy.

  The article on the lakefront development really didn’t help me much except to give the particulars of how big the lake would be, whose property it would incorporate, and how much revenue it would make in the long run for the county. The only name I caught was Paddington Elster. The Elsters were related to us. I believe Paddy was a first cousin to Nate Keith. The article mentioned that he was one of the strong supporters for the Pine Branch people to sell to the lake developers. He was tired of farming and wanted to make some money on the land that had taken his youth from him. I really didn’t think that the resort and lake development was the reason Nate Keith was killed.

  So, what did all of this mean?

  Would I ever know what all of this meant?

  I put the stuff in my top drawer of my desk and shut it. I had about an hour until the sheriff would be here. I decided to find my children and take them to get an ice cream.

  Twenty-four

  Rachel, Mary and I arrived back at the house at about four forty-five, and the sheriff’s squad car was parked in front. Rachel had bombarded me with questions about death all the way to the ice-cream place and back, while Mary just kept adding to her Christmas list. I think she had about 115 things on it.

  Inside the house I was surprised to see that the only people there were Rudy, the sheriff and my mother. Not a single other family member. Wow. I was a little apprehensive, because the last words the sheriff and I had had were not real friendly to each other. He was in formal dress and seemed all business-like.

  Rudy came over and gave me a kiss. The coats came off the kids and onto the floor.

  “Hey,” I said. “Pick up your coats.” I repeat that every single day. Do they just not hear the things that you repeat more than once?

  Mary picked up her coat and headed for her room to play, Rachel grabbed a cookie out of the cookie jar, grabbed her coat, and went to the living room to watch TV. My mother, who was peeling potatoes, smiled at me. I was pregnant. I guess she was going to smile like this for the next eight months.

  “Torie,” the sheriff said.

  “Hello, Sheriff. How did the autopsy go?” I asked.

  “Well, we won’t have the results to some tests for a while, but it looks like a straight drowning,” he said. “Now, whether or not he was pushed or he just fell, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. “A sign of a struggle?”

  “No. He didn’t have any bruises, nothing under his nails except about a week’s worth of grime,” he said.

  “Hmm.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?” he asked. “Did you want me to tell you there was foul play?”

  “No, rather I wanted to hear you say for sure that there wasn’t,” I said.

  “There’s just no way I can say that. If he was as drunk the night he fell in the water as he was the rest of the time he was here, it wouldn’t have taken much for somebody to just shove him off the pier.” The sheriff rubbed the brim on his hat. “If he was as drunk that night as he was the rest of the time he was here, he could have just as easily slipped off the pier as well. Unless there is a witness, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”

  Which translated into: my conscience would never be clear. I felt tears sting my eyes and I wiped at them. I took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Are you cooking?” I asked my mother in an attempt to change the subject.

  “I’m starting on the potato salad for Monday. I’m going to have to make a ton of it,” she said.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?” the sheriff asked. “Outside or in your office?”

  “Outside,” I said. “I need the air.”

  I still had my coat on from taking the kids out earlier, so I just walked out the back door of my kitchen into the backyard. There were four snowmen in the backyard, perched in front of the chicken coop as if in protection. One was wearing my good scarf.

  “What’s up?” I asked him with my arms crossed.

  “Okay, you gonna tell me about this piece of paper, now?” he asked.

  “The day you called, I jotted those two names down on a piece of paper. I turned my back for something and when I turned back around the piece of paper was gone. There were a few people in the kitchen and even more throughout the house, so I wasn’t sure who took it. Or why they would have taken it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, actually I’d forgotten about it until you showed it to me this morning. I guess now I know, Uncle Jed took it.” I looked down at my feet. “Do you think he went to see him?”

  “See the McCarthys?” he asked. I nodded my head. “I don’t know. Guess we could give them a visit and
see.”

  “I feel so bad, Colin. I am just distraught,” I said.

  “What have you learned that’s new about your great-grandfather?”

  I looked at him speculatively. He tilted his head and gave me that look that my high school principal used to give me. The one that said, Tell me now and I’ll let you live.

  “Basically, I’ve learned that somebody shot him on his front porch—”

  “You knew that before,” he cut in.

  “Yeah, well now I know that my great-grandmother held her grandchildren and her two sons and daughter-in-law at gunpoint to keep them from going out to help him. They were made to stay in the house while he died. It took almost four hours,” I said.

  He was speechless. Judging by the look on his face, I don’t think he quite believed me. Not that I blamed him. This was a hard thing for me to swallow. I knew, though, that Aunt Sissy would not have lied about her account of that day.

  “I know that my dad was in the barn when it happened and I’m not sure where Uncle Jed was. Everybody else was trapped in the house. I intend to ask my father about this tomorrow or tonight if I can. He’s the one that sent me the newspaper articles,” I said.

  “Really,” the sheriff said. “Why do you suppose he did that? Why didn’t he just come out and tell you?”

  “I think part of it is that he didn’t want to be the one to break the silence with his brothers and sisters, yet he wanted me to know,” I said. “I’m not sure exactly. It’s one of the things I plan on discussing with him.”

  The air was brisk and cold against my face. The smell of wood being burned was heavy in the air. Strange how good and comforting that smell is. I hugged myself to ward off the cold, which never worked. Why do we do that?

  “So are you saying that there are no suspects other than your family?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that either Della Ruth took advantage of the fact somebody had shot her jerk of a husband for her, and wanted to make sure he died, or she knew it was going to happen.”

  “You mean she hired somebody?”

  “Or she cashed in a favor.”

  He pondered over that one for a minute.

  “Could she have pulled the trigger herself?” he asked.

  “She was present and accounted for in the kitchen when he was shot,” I said. I watched him as he thought in silence again. “If somebody else did do it, and she was unaware that it was going to happen, she did nothing to save him.”

  “Gunshot wound in the forties?” the sheriff said. “Nothing would have saved him.”

  He was most likely correct on that one. “Then she wanted him to know that nobody gave a damn.”

  “So who would have been in a place where they could have seen who did it?” the sheriff asked.

  “Nobody knows where Jed was, and we’ll never know now. Which makes his death all the more curious. My dad was in the barn, he could have seen. If somebody was in the living room … I don’t know. I’d have to ask each one of them, and I know some of them aren’t going to answer me.”

  “Aside from your family, who else is there?”

  “Bradley Ferguson,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “A man who was in love with Della Ruth, and also just happened to be the little brother to the boy who died in a swimming accident that was, for all intents and purposes, Nate Keith’s fault. I suppose any of the Fergusons would be suspect. Paddington Elster, he wanted to sell the land to the lakefront developers. And the most disturbing piece of evidence yet … a photo of our Hubert McCarthy with his arm draped around my grandfather, John Robert. They were best friends.”

  “Are you telling me the investigating officer of the crime was best friends with John Robert?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah. The thing that is the most discouraging is I don’t think we are ever going to know. The murder is just too old and most of the people involved are dead. Unless one of my family members decides to speak, it’s going to be unsolved for all eternity.” I know it was a little melodramatic, but after everything that had happened this week, I felt a little melodramatic.

  “Let’s go see Hubert McCarthy,” the sheriff said.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked. “Oh, yeah, you’re marrying my mother. That’s why you agreed to find Hubert in the first place. You wanted to soften me up for when I heard the news.”

  The sheriff shrugged his shoulders a bit. He at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “Maybe,” he said, without making eye contact. “I can also see that this is really bothering you. If I were you, I’d take advantage of my niceness while you can.”

  Between him and my father, I didn’t know which one I wanted to haul off and punch the most.

  Twenty-five

  After dinner, I gave the girls a bath, read them a few books and then settled them in front of the TV with their father to watch Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. The sheriff and I went to see Hubert McCarthy. His son Roger was just as congenial this time as he was the first time that we visited.

  The only lights on in the congested and dark living room of the McCarthys’ were the Christmas lights and light from their television. The McCarthys were watching the same seasonal Christmas shows that my children were at home watching.

  “Mr. McCarthy, the main reason we are here to see you is that Torie has made a discovery that we are a little perplexed about,” the sheriff said with complete authority.

  “What’s that?” Hubert said from his wheelchair.

  “I found a photograph of you with my grandfather,” I said.

  “So?” he asked.

  “With your arms around each other. You two look like best friends,” I stated and waited for him to either deny or confirm.

  Hubert McCarthy was quiet a moment. Roger looked at his father and then back to us and then back to his father. Roger seemed just as anxious to hear his father’s reply as I was. Finally, Hubert clicked his dentures together and spoke.

  “We were best friends,” he said. “I did not let that interfere with my investigation.”

  “How could it not?” Sheriff Brooke asked. “Did John Robert Keith just stand back while you drilled each one of his children over and over? No father would have stood for that, and no investigating officer would have let up.”

  “We were best friends and I repeat, it did not interfere with my investigation,” Hubert McCarthy said.

  “I apologize if we sound like we’re accusing you of something,” I said to him. “You must know how this came as a shock to us.”

  “I understand,” Hubert said. “After you left the last time, I sent my son up to the attic to find my old files. I have the one on Nate Keith, if you want it.”

  I was a little taken aback by his generosity in light of the fact we’d come here to accuse him of having a conflict of interest on this case. I wondered at his motive for this. Maybe he really wanted us to get to the bottom of it after all these years.

  “We can take it and look at it,” the sheriff said. “We’ll bring it back.”

  Hubert McCarthy motioned to his son to go and get the file from some other room. The room was silent except for the music coming from the television set. Everybody in cartoon land was happy-go-lucky and singing a wonderfully cheery song. Roger came back in less than two minutes and before he could choose which one of us to give the file to, the sheriff held out his hand. Roger handed it to him and Sheriff Brooke nodded his head to him in acknowledgment.

  “What did you think of Nate Keith?” I asked. Somehow I just didn’t feel comfortable with the fact this man was my grandfather’s best friend, and then the investigating officer of his best friend’s father’s murder. Maybe Hubert knew who killed Nate and just looked the other way. Maybe he’d just pretended to have not solved it all these years.

  “Nobody liked Nate Keith, the good-for-nothing. My grandma used to say that sometimes evil came to the earth and walked
around in the disguise of men. That was Nate. He beat his boys in the head with his fists until their ears bled. John was a musician. Last thing he needed damaged was his ears,” Hubert said. “Evil or not he was killed by evil and whoever did it should have been sent to jail.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t self-defense?” I said.

  “Coulda been,” he said and shrugged. “Considered that a few times.”

  “Well, Mr. McCarthy, we’re going to go now. I know you should be in bed. I’ll return your file to you as soon as we’ve read it. If you can think of anything, give us a call,” the sheriff said.

  “You can keep the file. It’s not state property. Was my own private files,” Hubert said. Then he turned his attention to me. “You been finding out about your family?”

  “Yes,” I answered him. “After this, I think I may just stick to names on a chart and the heck with the ‘other pertinent information’ section.”

  “You talk to your father,” Hubert instructed.

  I nodded to him and the sheriff and I left. He had driven the official car, by the way. As soon as we were in the car I asked to see the file.

  “Let me look at it first,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He might have pictures in it,” the sheriff said. “You don’t want to see pictures of your great-grandfather lying there with his guts spilled on the front porch.”

  “Thanks for sparing me,” I said, trying to erase the visual he’d just given me. Little did he know my imagination was far more vivid than any photograph I would see. It was a nice gesture, though.

  “What do you think?” he asked me. We were all the way to Loughborough in nothing flat.

  “About what?”

  “About his statement. Do you really believe he could have been the investigating officer without the conflict of interest?”

  “I think you’d be more likely to answer that than I would. What do you think?” I asked.